


Lying in Wait

by purplemechanics



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Spoilers, amy's version of events i.e. the 6 months tha boys are away, an incomplete glimpse at amy's coping, spoilers for season 4 ep 1, woot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:50:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8108311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplemechanics/pseuds/purplemechanics
Summary: She likes to pretend that she’s ready to pounce, but she knows deep down that he’s her oxygen, and she’s been holding her breath for six months. She’s on a deathbed, and she’s certain they’re both running out of time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ayyy so that season premiere left me with a lot of #emotions so for some reason I decided to write instead of doing my homework (rip my GPA). Note that this DOES have like really big spoilers for 4x01 (cause that's what it's about? lol) So if you don't want spoilers go watch it and then come back! Also if you have already seen it go watch it again! and then again! and then again!

Day –1

 

She finds herself in the bathroom more often than not, more often than necessary. She keeps bracing herself against the door like it’s the last solid thing in the world, like everything else is shattering and crumbling and flaking away. _You should be out there_ , her relentless conscience chides. And God, she _knows_. She knows he needs her more than she needs herself right now. She knows that later she’ll regret not spending every last second that she could by his side.

Her shaking hand reaches out to the sink faucet and turns it on slowly. The handle grates harshly. She sucks in a breath before splashing the cold and questionably murky water onto her face. It doesn’t make anything clearer.

It doesn’t make anything easier. 

She forces herself back into the living room where she knows she’ll find him bundled up under that stained fleece blanket of his, staring blankly at the flashing TV screen. She can tell he’s not processing what he’s seeing; who would’ve thought something would ever weigh on his mind more heavily than _Die Hard_?

She picks up the remote and clicks the TV off, and still he doesn’t react. She tucks herself next to him on the couch, trying her best to ignore the faint odor radiating from that filthy blanket. Everything seems hollow and New York City is quieter than she’s ever heard it. She’s desperate to fill up the silence.

“Jake?” She can’t bring herself to look at him. She knows that he’s still staring at the black TV screen.

“Yeah?” he says, and his voice is so casually nonchalant that this could have been a joke. It’s like she could wake up in the morning and he’d be there, handing her a coffee and complaining while she bustles them out the door to work.

Except he won’t be.

“You’re gonna be okay, right?” Of course he was; this whole mess was to keep him safe. The whole precinct had gotten the briefing from Marshal Haas three days ago. The operation was astoundingly fast paced; Jake was no longer Jake, and soon he would no longer be in Brooklyn.

“Of course.” He tries to shrug it off, but he’s failing. “It’ll be just like being undercover.”

“Except you won’t get to be involved in the case,” she points out.

He laughs a little. It’s humorless. “That’s what they think, at least.”

Her sharp gaze turns on him. “I swear to God, if you do anything stupid that’ll get one of you killed –”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he mutters, pushing up off the sofa and letting the blanket fall to the ground. He shuffles into the kitchen space and looks around like he’s lost. Maybe he is.

“I’m serious,” she persists, getting up to follow him. “This is serious, Jake. You’ve got to be careful about this because the charade isn’t about the _other person_ this time. It’s about _you_.”

He’s picking things up and putting them down, each of his movements stiff and forceful. He still won’t look at her. “I’ll keep that in mind, Ames. All about me. Love it.”

She flushes indignantly. “ _Jake_ , you –”

“God, Amy, I _know,_ ” he groans as his knees hit the ground. He’s leaning against the counter, the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes. He looks like a crumpled up piece of paper that’s been torn and tossed aside. Her heart breaks for what feels like the millionth time that night. “I _know_ to be careful and I _know_ it’s gonna suck and I _know_ I’ll go insane not being able to do anything, but I just wanted one night to forget about it. Just one night – just –”

She’s beside him, then, and they’ve collapsed into each other in a trembling mess. She grasps at the back of his sweater like a lifeline and he’s holding her so tightly she can hardly breathe, but she doesn’t mind. When the WITSEC Personnel come to pick him up at 3 that morning, she waits until the door shuts behind him to cry.

 

Day 31

 

It hasn’t gotten easier. Actually, she almost thinks its gotten worse. Every night when she climbs into bed, all she can think about is Jake or Figgis or both of them together and then she doesn’t end up sleeping so much. The next day she’s supposed to waltz into the precinct like she’s not broken and nothing’s wrong. She’s not technically supposed to be involved in the investigation because of “personal ties,” but Terry cuts her some slack when it comes to the private briefings. There’s not much to report; Figgis’s wall is impenetrable.

She starts to fantasize about hacking the Witness Protection Program’s security database to find out where he is. She’s not allowed any contact and she’s going through withdrawal. Sometimes in the night she can feel the ghost of his hands or a glimmer of his lips on her skin. She rewatches the stupid Snapchat videos of him that she wasn’t supposed to save just to hear his voice. She _aches_ for him, and every day she goes without is another day further down into the pit.

The new Captain makes matters worse. He’s lazy, irresponsible, and disorganized; worst of all, he doesn’t seem to give a _damn_ about the Nine Nine or its decidedly friendly atmosphere. (It’s less friendly now that Jake’s gone). Terry’s requested for a captain transfer four times already, and they haven’t heard anything back. Rosa’s workload has been tripling; she’s trying to drown herself as a distraction. Amy wonders if maybe she should try it. Charles has been down in the dumps too, always looking around desperately for friends that aren’t there. Gina complains about the Captain stealing her rep as “lazy but still essential to the team.” She, for her part, hasn’t started showing any signs of deterioration.

Amy wishes she could say the same for herself.

 

Day 58

 

It takes her 58 days after Jake leaves to notice that every single case she’s been put on has been a drug bust. When she marches up to Terry to ask why, he looks sad. “I thought it might help you,” he explains gently. “Knowing you're working towards the same goal as the investigation you’re not allowed in.”

He’s not wrong.

 

Day 63

 

She breaks down in the evidence lock up. It’s been two months – _two months_ – and they’ve gotten a single update from Marshal Haas. “They’re alive.” Those two words aren’t enough to make Amy believe it, so she excuses herself under some work-related pretense and sobs under the file cabinets until she’s run herself dry. She thought she’d moved past the crying, really.

Then again, she hadn’t anticipated waiting this long.

 

Day 72

 

She punches a guy in the interrogation room. She’s all alone and even though he’s a petty shoplifter, he’s getting under her skin. He’s all Axe body spray and no tact and everything _was_ under control until he started making crude comments about Latinas being good in bed. She doesn’t know that she’s reached across the table and decked him across the jaw until it’s done, and he starts screaming bloody _murder_. The witnesses (Rosa, Scully) escort them both out of the room as he’s yelling about suing for police brutality, and Amy wants to throw up.

She’s never taken the offensive before. Any violence was defense; self or other wise. She wishes she could claim she was possessed, or forced to do it.

The truth was uglier than that.

She hands in her badge and her gun when the suspension notice comes in the mail a week later.

 

Day 101

 

Terry comes to her apartment with some soup that his wife made and finds her life in a total state of disarray. Nothing is clean, nothing is whole.

“What is it?” she sighs as she opens the door. Terry doesn’t say anything, just holds up a case file marked with big red letters that read “CONFIDENTIAL,” and her whole day brightens.

 

Day 113

 

Her mom won’t stop calling. “I’m really worried, _mija_ ,” she frets, and Amy can practically hear her chewing on her lip through the phone. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. I can practically smell your depression through the phone! You need to find something to do with this time! You can’t be sitting around on your _culo_ just because you feel sorry for yourself.” There’s silence on the line. “The boys say you’re not taking care of yourself, _amor_.”

Amy snorts. “The boys are _mentirosos_. Raff’s the only one I’ve seen in weeks.”

“He says you smell,” her mom says distastefully, like someone dropped a fly in her lemonade.

“I can’t keep having this conversation with you, _mamá._ I’m doing what I can. Let me figure this one out on my own,” she sighs.

More silence. “ _Bueno_ ,” her mother says tartly, and hangs up. Amy gets up off her _culo_ like her mother told her to and drags herself to the evidence board hanging up across her living room, Jake’s face plastered to the center.

 

Day 124

 

It’s her first day back, and she throws herself in headfirst after a harrowing briefing from the Vulture himself on suspension-return protocol. It’s not like she doesn’t have the handbook _memorized_.

She’s barely logged herself into the system computer when Terry drops a sticky note onto her desk as he passes, not stopping to look at her. She glances down and her heart drops to her stomach.

 _Anonymous tip came in. We have a lead_.

 

Day 127

 

She’s pretty sure even this sick excuse for a Captain is noticing how much lower her arrest rates are. She’s using readjusting as an excuse, but really it’s because she’s spending so much time in the bathroom going over files that Terry hands her as discreetly as he can manage. It’s been three days since she really and truly _slept_ , but she can’t bring herself to pay any mind to the darkened skin under her eyes. 

The anonymous tip is checking out so far. She can hardly breathe from excitement. They need to wait, though, to act on it. Something about Terry “verifying credentials.”

For the first time in her life, she doesn’t care so much about procedures.

 

Day 132

 

The raid’s a bust. Figgis is nowhere near the scene; the suspects have nothing on them. People are milling all around the warehouse. Amy hears Marshal Haas’s laugh from across the room and spots her talking to a group of women from the Nine Two. Amy’s trying to school her face as evenly as possible, but her lip keeps breaking the hold and quivering. Before she can contort further she turns to go and smacks straight into one of the cleared suspects preparing to leave the scene. They both topple over, and it’s getting harder to quell the stinging in her eyes. She hops up immediately. “Oh, sir, I’m so sorry, I didn’t-” 

Somehow, a tiny plastic bag filled with white powder falls out of his sleeve when she helps him up. She’s on him in seconds.

 

Day 133

 

They were small time dealers who had nothing to do with Figgis. She wants to slam her fists against the wall and cry out, let off every last charge in her gun. She wants to buy every cigarette in the state of New York and smoke them all at once. She settles with waiting until she gets home and smashing a vase her stuffy old aunt gave her.

 

Day 149

 

She wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, not for the first time. A scream bubbles up in her throat and she muffles it with her pillow. She’s wearing Jake’s NYPD t-shirt, and despite her refusal to wash it, his scent has faded. She bunches the material in her fists nonetheless and gently sobs herself back to sleep.

 

Day 167

 

She’d almost venture to say that nothing seems worth it anymore. She tried to believe that she would never loose hope, but since that false raid, they’ve had nothing. Figgis is everywhere and nowhere all at once. He’s always one step ahead, always _smarter_.

Good thing she’s always been competitive.

 

Day 170

 

Terry pulls her into the copy room and sighs dramatically, his arms crossed over Jake’s case file. She doesn’t expect news, per se, but she can’t entirely squash the glimmer of hope that sparks in her chest. He opens his mouth and she leans forward with anticipation. “You can’t keep this up,” he says.

Oh. Unexpected.

“I have to keep this up, Sarge. You know that.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not talking about the case.”

Her brow furrows. “What else is there? I’ve lived and breathed this case for almost _six months_ now. There is nothing else that I’m keeping up.”

He looks straight at her like he can see right through her and she’s uncomfortable with it. “ _What_ , Terry?”

“When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?” he asks her, direct as can be.

“Six months ago,” she huffs quietly.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Um, at breakfast?”

“No, Amy, I mean _really ate_ – sat in a chair, put down the case, and ate a full meal.”

He’s got her there. She’s rather left without a respectable answer. She’s eating – she knows how the human body works, and nutrients are a necessity, obviously – but perhaps its not enough. (She knows very well that it’s not enough).

“My eating habits are fine, Sarge.” She tries to push past him – if he has nothing about the case to say, she has other work to do – but he blocks her.

“You’re not acting healthily. When was the last time you did anything for yourself, Santiago?”

A rage boils in the pit of her stomach as she faces him squarely. “For myself?” she feels herself spit. “You want me to think about myself when there’s a man – _two_ men – who are being kept from their lives and the people they love in a place they don’t know under the threat of death _indefinitely_? You want me to _ignore_ all that because, what, because I eat on the bus instead of at the table?" 

Terry’s staring at her with this sad, sort of knowing look in his eyes that’s pissing her off. He glances over her shoulder, worry flashing in his expression. She turns around to see a majority of the precinct staring at them, having heard her outburst through the glass. Terry’s sharing a look with Rosa. She looks sad too.

“Take the afternoon off, Santiago,” she hears Terry murmur from behind her. She spins and grabs the file out of his hands before storming to her desk to collect her things. She’s out of the precinct before anyone can blink and she carries her hurricane with her down the streets of Brooklyn.

 

Day 186

 

She sees the video that morning before she goes to work. The wifi’s not working in her apartment (AGAIN) and she would never normally use her data to watch a video, but the second she sees their faces on the thumbnail she picks up her coffee and sprints out the door, watching it. Captain Holt’s taken on a bit of weight, but he flips off the ground like he’s nothing. The tips of Jake’s hair are frosted and it makes him look like a total _douche_ and before she can stop herself she’s laughing hysterically in the elevator.

She has to wait before getting out for a minute to wipe the tears off of her cheeks.

When she gets to work, everyone’s seen it. “Those _idiots_ ,” Terry fumes, pacing back and forth in front of Gina’s desk. “They’ve compromised themselves. They’ve compromised _everything_.”

“It’s a techy-tech world, Terrence,” Gina interjects. “It’s hard to believe no one’s filmed them being stupid sooner.”

Something’s bugging Amy, though. “No, no, no,” she’s mumbling when Rosa grabs her arm.

“What?” Rosa demands.

Amy takes a glance at everyone standing around Gina’s desk. Charles, Terry, even Scully and Hitchcock came over for the occasion. (In their chairs, of course).

“They would’ve found a way to take it down before it went viral, or a way to stop it from being posted, I _know_ it,” Amy insists after a little hesitation.

Gina shakes her head. “Uh-uh-uh, Miss Stone Age, nobody can stop the internet. Not even Jake, _especially_ not Raymond.”

Rosa looks deep in thought, though. “Something does feel weird about it,” she says, almost as if agreeing with Amy.

Terry looks around at all of them, conflicted. Then he squares his shoulders, seeming to have made a decision. “Whether or not it was purposeful, their location and situation have been compromised. It’s time to break the detachment. I’m dialing Haas.” He walks away, phone in hand, and Amy feels like her lungs are squeezing together. 

“Oh my God, really? Will we get to see them?” she whispers. Rosa and Gina shrug, Charles looks doubtful. Hitchcock is asleep.

 

Day 187

 

When she finds out that they posted the video on purpose, she’s furious. Marshal Haas has informed them all of the Floridian _idiots’_ plan to lure Figgis down to Coral Palms. The worst part: the Program is going along with it. The Coral Palms PD is set in position along with SWAT alongside Jake and Captain Holt’s residences, waiting for Figgis to come looking. Amy knows it won’t be that easy.

So much depends on so many different variables, and she hasn’t even gotten to talk to him yet.

 

Day 194

 

Figgis is dead. Amy still isn’t entirely clear on the details. Figgis’s people had kidnapped Jake and Holt, that much she knew; Jake had left an encoded message for the SWAT team to let them be taken so that they would be led straight to Figgis. They were brought up to New York, reportedly nearly _died_ , and eventually led the SWAT team to victory against Figgis’s ring. They didn’t bring down the whole thing, but they brought down the man in charge. All that was left to bring in were the splinters.

Amy had been on the other side of the rusty old building when all this had occurred. As dispatch rattled off the situation into her earpiece, she kept demanding locations. “Where are they? You need to tell me where they are ASAP.” The dispatcher finishes his report before paying her any mind. “Western corner, up on the fourth.” She hurries down eight flights of stairs, a random sergeant calling after her to stay put. Her legs are burning and her hands are shaking and her mouth is so dry. She puts it all aside to keep sprinting. She tumbles down the last flight, smacking her head against the drywall at the bottom. She feels dizzy and disoriented when she gets back up, but keeps going. There’s no blood. She’ll probably be fine.

She scrambles along the fourth floor hallways, pushing through officers to reach the scene. When she gets there, she doesn’t even know it. She’s looking around frantically, but she can’t find any sign of Jake or Holt. “Where are they?” she’s gasping. “Where – where are the hostages – where—”

She feels a hand on her shoulder. It’s a detective she remembers from combat training. “They took them down to the Four Eight for processing already. They were pretty eager to get out of here.”

“Thanks.” The word rips out of Amy like a cough and she spins on her heel and continues down the stairs. _Without me? Really?_ The Four Eight had never, in all of her years on the force, begun processing so quickly after a raid. They had to start _now?_

 

Later

 

She’s stabbing at the Elevator Open button of the Nine Nine when she hears the little ‘ding’ announcing her arrival. She received word on the way to the Four Eight that the two men had been transferred to the Nine Nine in order to be at their own station, to which she had screamed in frustration and flipped off about nine other anxious New York drivers on the way. She stumbles through the doors as they open, half expecting to see him sitting at his desk, reading over a file. He’s not, of course.

She does spot strangely brown-blond hair sticking up from the Captain’s office, however, and Captain Holt and Marshal Haas are in there as well. The Captain catches her eye as she takes quick strides towards his door. The brown-blond head turns to follow the gaze and her breath hitches in her throat. She freezes. 

People are talking all around her, running papers all around, but she can only see him. One hundred and ninety-four days and seventeen hours, and there he is staring at her through the glass less than twenty feet away. He’s on his feet before she can even blink. He opens the door and ignores all calls from those back in the office. Her feet find a way to move again and she wishes her vision weren’t blurring so she could look at his brown eyes for just a second longer –

She hurls herself at him, wrapping her legs around his waist and the rest of her around any part of him that she can find. His arms clasp tightly over her back and she feels his face burrow into her neck and a sob wrack his throat. She squeezes her eyes shut and fists her hands in his shirt and breaths him in. He’s so there, he’s so solid, he’s so _alive_. She realizes she had started to doubt his return altogether, but he was _here_.

“Peralta,” Marshal Haas’s voice rings out sharply. “Later.”

He ignores her. She can feel his tears on her neck, but she doesn’t care as long as she gets to stay wrapped around him like this.

“Peralta,” Haas warns.

He pulls back hesitantly, still leaving close to no space between them as Amy untangles herself from him. As a shuddering breath escapes his lips and his eyes flit back and forth over her face, it hits Amy that he’s been as miserable as she has, and suddenly all she wants to do is hug him again. His hands are on her face and he’s laughing in a sort of disbelief, and she can’t help herself. Her breathless giggles join his and she covers his hands with her own.

“Hey,” he breathes.

She laughs a little harder. “Your hair,” she chokes out. “It makes you look like such a douchebag.”

A flash of affection and his lips are surging down to meet hers. He presses hard up against her, like a starving man eating for the first time in centuries. Something coils in her abdomen. She clutches on tight again.

“Peralta, I’m not kidding, _now_!” snaps Haas, brutally ripping apart the reunion.

Jake smooths his hands over her forearms and leans his forehead against hers. “A few more minutes, okay? Give me a few more minutes and I’m yours.”

Amy nods, finding it difficult to open her eyes. “Okay,” she rasps. “I love you.”

He squeezes her gently. A relief pours off of her soul; it’s been far too long since she said those words. “I love you,” he murmurs before turning back to face Haas and the accompanying ordeal. The door slams shut a little behind them and Amy collapses into her desk chair, watching Jake’s head bob up and down from the window. He seems to be doing a small dance to celebrate his homecoming. It makes her smile.

She’s waited one hundred and ninety-four days and seventeen hours. It’s a bit ridiculous for Haas to ask any more of her. She supposes, though, that as long as she knows he’s here, she can endure anything.


End file.
